


I wanna know (can you show me?)

by Aspidities



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alpha Kara Danvers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, F/F, Omega Lena Luthor, Phil Collins and everything, Slow Burn, fucking superb you funky wild jungle lesbians, it’s the Tarzan AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:39:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspidities/pseuds/Aspidities
Summary: A star falls out of the sky, a ship crosses the ocean, and an heiress falls out of a tree.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 167
Kudos: 1440





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I consider this AU the end result of an unfair campaign against my person consisting of bombarding me with photo manips and gif sets of Kara as Tarzan and Lena as Jane. Well joke’s on you because you wanted me to write it and now it’s a slow burn. 
> 
> If I’ve gotta suffer, I’m taking everybody with me.

When the pod landed, it was a ball of fire in the sky that drew the eyes of every animal in the forest, including the gorilla tribe. 

Only the oldest female of the silverback’s troop was brave enough to investigate, though. 

He watched her go down into the crater, oblivious to his low hoots of warning, and blew air out, smacking the ground as the rest of the troop watched from behind his back, making distressed grunts and pants. He didn’t trust the sky fire, or the way it fell. No one liked the smell of it, either—it was burning still in their sensitive noses. Acrid, strong. Not a leopard smell, but not _good,_ either. 

But the female was curious. She thought she’d heard an infant’s wailing, and, having recently lost one of her own, she was of the mind to be dogged. She made her way slowly, knuckles brushing the scorched ground, and sniffed. _Ah. There._

There was a click, and a hum, which alarmed her, and she hooted at it, chuffing air and scraping dirt, backing quickly away. But the thing only slowly opened, revealing the warm, pinkish bundle that squirmed and squealed. It had golden fur at the top of its head, instead of her own lost baby’s lovely dark brown coat, but otherwise it was naked, like a rodent. 

It looked sickly. Maybe it had come out wrong. The female turned to go, but the infant rolled, wiggling free of its wrapping. And it began to squall, because it was cold. The tiny chest, exposed to the air, stretched and arched and wailed, heartbreakingly. 

Every mother, no matter the species, knows that cry. 

The male issued a low warning, blowing out his breath threateningly. But the female ignored him. There was no threat here. Just a baby thing that would die of cold and fear and loneliness before night’s end, if the leopard did not get him first. Her great, solid heart twisted in her chest, and her finger grazed the edge of the wrappings. 

The baby, cooing in interest, grabbed at her finger, twice the size of its chubby fist. Grayish-blue eyes looked up into the dark face of the female gorilla, and the baby chirped, raising its arms to be held. 

Carefully, with the gentleness of a creature half her size, the female gathered the wrappings up, and nestled the baby to her chest with one arm. She made her way out of the crater, picking silently over the smoking ground, and ignored the indignant grunts of her mate. He would get used to it. A new baby was good for the troop, anyway. Everyone loved babies. 

Later that night, in the nest she had made of folded branches and flattened leaves, the gorilla lay back with the baby on her chest, and encouraged it to suckle. The baby nudged and mouthed against her breast, and she pushed her nipple into it’s seeking mouth. When the infant latched and began to nurse, she sighed, contentedly, and settled on one side, stroking the delicate curls of blonde fur with one giant finger. 

If it lived, she decided she would name it Ka-Ra. 

The Golden One. 

***

“Lena! You know you’re not allowed in Papa’s study!”

Lex grabbed her by the back of her pinafore, but she wrenched free, leaving him clutching a taffeta bow. He stamped his foot on the hallway rug. “You wretched little hobgoblin! Mother will tan your hide!”

Lena threw a face at him and sprinted for the door, ducking around the edge just as Lex’s fingers reached for her. She tumbled onto the thick, green carpet and crawled behind one of the stuffed bears, giggling. 

“Lena!” Lex hissed, trying to keep his voice low, even as his schoolboy’s voice cracked. He had only presented as an alpha two weeks before, and was taking his role very seriously already. 

He spotted her behind the bear and hauled her out by one ankle. “There you are, now you’re in for it—“

“What’s all this then?” The elder Luthoer alpha peered over the edge of his golden spectacles, examining his two pink-cheeked offspring. 

“Sorry sir.” Lex dropped Lena’s ankle and helped his sister to her feet, brushing down her pinafore as he tried to re-fix her bow. “She’s supposed to be in elocution lessons. Mother said for her not to bother you.”

“My children are not a bother. Lillian should know that by now.” Lionel told his son, benignly. He swung his chair out and patted his lap. “Come here, Lena darling. You too, Alexander.”

“Papa!” Lena went to her father’s open arms and clambered into his lap. He kissed the silken top of her dark brown head, and she nestled into his chest, which smelled, as always, of tobacco and musky leather. Lionel absentmindedly smoothed down the bow in her hair as he held her close, showing her the map spread across the desk as he beckoned Lex closer. 

“See here, children? This is an island just off the coast of Africa. And here is where your Papa shall make his fortune ten times over.” Lionel chuckled and nudged Lex with an elbow. “Enough to keep your mother in opera furs for the rest of her life, and then some.”

“She’d like that.” Lena said, solemnly, and Lex giggled. 

“Why this island, Father?” Lex asked, intelligently, as Lena’s chubby finger followed her father’s across the map to the tiny dot in the Indian Ocean. “Are there diamonds?”

“Son, there are diamonds in every crevice of Africa. But the Belgian King has already begun looting, and soon after there will be not much to be claimed.” Lionel’s laugh was rich with dark knowledge. “No, this contains something far more valuable. A meteor. A metal from space. One fell about five years ago, and no one has yet had the gall to go looking for it.”

“Space?” Lena asked, tilting her little chin up at her father’s glowing smile. “How did it come from so far away?”

“It fell, dear heart.” Her father kissed the top of her head. “It fell from the sky. And with it, in that island, rests all our hopes and dreams. Can you imagine that?” 

He placed her tiny hand over the island on the map. “A star that fell from space.”

“Magic star.” Lena whispered, looking down between her spread fingers at the longitude numbers. “Magic.”

***

The child Ka-Ra lived. And grew. 

And grew. 

Golden-haired and bright eyed, she was taller than a gorilla, and definitely larger than a rodent, by a long shot. She was strangely pink, gawky-limbed, and got cold easily, so she had to use the wrapping she’d been found in—a soiled blue and red that stood out in the forest like a target for predators—tied around her waist like extra fur. She also didn’t walk well on her knuckles, preferring to half-stand, half-stoop as to fit in. Still, she ate the same food, and spoke their language, and slept in their nests, so most of the troop accepted her just fine. 

The silverback had his reservations, though, and they were only reinforced by her strength. Ka-Ra was _strong._ Even at an early age, she could throw another juvenile twice her size over her shoulder without the slightest bit of effort. She could pull up a tree and hold it one-handed while the troop picked out squirming grubs at their leisure. When the elephant tribe had one of their calves stuck down a ravine, Ka-Ra simply hauled him out by his tail, lifting him without even grunting in exertion. 

Unfortunately, though, this great strength was not without drawbacks. Ka-Ra grew to juvenile stage, and, even in her naive innocence, began presenting as a challenge to the silverback. She smelled of testosterone and musk, and when she had a bad day, she could haul gorilla-sized boulders out of the ground and fling them around at will. Though she never directed her ire at the dominant male, the silverback did not like having such an aggressive force in his troop. He constantly displayed at her, knocked her over, put his canines in her face and roared. But no matter what Ka-Ra did, she could not appease him.

Until one day. 

The troop had been feeding on some new shoots in the clearing made by the elephants a few weeks before—when the bull had gone through the woods in a musth-drunk haze, looking for the herd and the females. His dung had made potent fertilizer for the saplings, and their green growth was what the troop was feasting on now, silent and focused. There had been four new infants among the younger females this year, and the group needed all the calories they could get, with so many more mouths to feed. The silverback had his attention drawn by a particularly tasty root, and had a momentary lapse in concentration, allowing his exhaustion as a father to overweight his alertness. 

Which was, of course, when the leopard struck. 

One of the youngsters had strayed too far to the edge of the clearing. His inquisitiveness and youth had led him into a nice patch of mushrooms, and he hooted eagerly, stuffing his face before the rest of the troop could find them. Duly engrossed, he did not notice the flash of dappled hide behind him in the thick brush. 

But Ka-Ra did. 

The leopard bowled the youngster over, claw raking down his shoulder, and he screeched in mortal terror. The group looked up as one, and the silverback roared to life, galloping toward the the terrified juvenile, pinned down by the giant cat. But he was going to be too late, he wasn’t going to—

And then a blue and red flash tackled the leopard to the ground, and Ka-Ra grabbed the cat by its tail and swung it around her head like a vine. She screamed and slammed the beast to the ground, and beat her chest with both hands, hooting her dominance to the open corners of the clearing. The leopard, dazed and probably bleeding internally, flattened its ears, hissed and beat a hasty retreat, as Ka-Ra flung up dead tree limbs and hurled them after it.

The silverback caught up to the scene, and inspected the still-shivering, panicked juvenile. He had a big bloody claw mark on one shoulder, and was howling for his mother—who came scampering down to him, panting and grunting at his distress—but he was otherwise unharmed. 

He would have been eaten, if not for Ka-ra, who was still beating her chest at the direction of the cat, daring it to return. 

The silverback went over to the young alpha, and calmed her, grunting gently as he patted her back heavily. She looked at him, wide-eyed in surprise, and he gave her the sideways look of gorilla approval, before adding his own chest-beating. A final insult to the leopard, and a signal of fatherly pride. 

That night, the silverback let her take first watch, while he rested, safe with the protection of his chosen deputy. 

And Ka-Ra sat amongst her family while they snored and slept heavily, and looked up at the stars overhead, and wondered where she came from. 

***

The ship that bore Lena to her destiny wasn’t a large or glamorous vessel. 

The _Merry Ida_ had seen many a better day. Her sails were battered in salt, and she had a tendency to list to one side. She was more of a fishing sloop than a passenger vehicle, but it was the only seaworthy ship with a drunk enough captain that Lex could convince to try making land on the island. The bay was littered in the corpses of other ships who had tried, but somehow, either by providence or the loose-judgement-luck of the captain, they had made it to safe anchorage. 

And now, her brother was refusing to let her go ashore. 

“Lena, I let you come along on this voyage out of misguided sentiment for your memories of Father, but really, you cannot expect me to allow you to traipse around the forests of darkest Africa just because our dear dead pater put your hand on a map _fifteen years ago._ ”

“It was his dream.” Lena argued, putting her laced boot firmly down on the deck. “He wanted _both_ of us to be there. He said exactly that, several times, before he died.”

“Darling, I really do agree with your brother.” Her fiancé-of-a-kind, Morgan Edge, inserted his opinion, as always, whether it was wanted or not. He was eating an apple, and threw it overboard before he’d finished more than two bites. “The wilds are no place for a civilized woman, and certainly not a highborn omega such as yourself.”

“What difference does my status make to whether a leopard will eat me or not?” Lena asked, simply, and rolled her eyes at the lock of shock on both alpha’s faces. “Look, you’re both wasting your time. I’ve told you already, you can’t keep me here. I’ll jump the side if I have to.”

Lex sighed, and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “She will, you know.” He told Edge, ruefully. “We’d better let her come.”

“What if there are tribes of savages?” Edge protested, indignantly. He lowered his voice and looked significantly at Lex. “Her virtue could be at stake.”

“Oh for _heaven’s_ sake.” Lena put her hands on her hips. “You cared very little for preserving my _virtue_ each of the seven nights you tried to enter my cabin on this voyage, Mr. Edge.”

Lex shot Edge a dangerous look, and her would-be suitor turned a bright red and rubbed his neck furiously. “Ah.”

“Yes, very eloquent.” Lena folded her arms. “Well. Are there any more objections or shall we go to shore now? Daylight is wasting, gentlemen.”

They went to shore. 

The men busied themselves over-directing the sailors at setting up camp, but Lena was itching to explore the crater. She had changed from her sea-stained skirts into a more suitable explorer’s frock, without a petticoat, and she ignored the few indiscreet looks she was receiving from the busy crew for how the fabric clung to her legs as she examined her father’s maps, comparing them to the landscape she could see from their beach. 

When she cupped her hands to her eyes, she could see that there was a tall ridge in the distance, almost a mountain—the edge of which could lead down to a crater, if one existed. Her father had seemed to think it was there. And Lena wanted to believe in the memory of her father...even if the unpleasant reality of her family sometimes got in the way. 

As well as alpha societal expectations. 

“No. No, you cannot go alone into the jungle. I let you come along, but at this I will put down my foot.” Lex seemed inclined to mean it, judging by the narrowed expression he was giving his omega sister. “You must wait until we have finished setting up camp. And then we shall mount our expedition formally.”

“Just a little _walk,_ Lex.” Lena was more than indignant. “I won’t even leave the campsite borders.”

“That is an outright lie, and you know it.” Her brother regarded her, unblinking. 

“We can go together.” Morgan declared, smiling foolishly at her as if she would have already forgotten his earlier transgressions. “I have an eye to start tracking the game trails before dusk. That way I can get a start on bagging a leopard before the expedition’s end.”

The alpha hefted his rifle, giving it a meaningful stroke that was lost on neither Lena nor Lex. “And you’ll be assured of my _thorough_ protection.”

“Perfect.” Lex blithely declared, even as Lena grit her teeth, releasing her most unwelcoming of scents. “Go with Mr. Edge, sister.” He instructed, outright ignoring her glare. “Be sure you’re both back before sundown. I shudder to think what primitive terrors the nights may bring in that jungle.”

***

There was a strange scent on the wind. 

Ka-Ra had been lifting her nose all morning. While the rest of the troop fed on figs, contentedly snuffling amongst themselves, she sat on lookout in a banyan tree, high up enough to see a strange cloud on the horizon. It looked...stationary. And there was a strange tree, standing almost in the middle of the ocean. She didn’t know how it could have possibly gotten there. 

It was fascinating. But also concerning. She looked down at her family, gorging among the figs, and frowned. No one was paying much attention. To the troop, it was mostly like any other day. 

But Ka-Ra was used to being the only one interested in the unusual. 

She herself was strange, to most other animals in the jungle. Waterbucks and antelope alike snorted in alarm at her alarmingly-naked skin, her weird upright gait, and her watchful, thinking eyes. Her strength was terrifying, isolating. The general consensus was that she was to be tolerated, but not, as a rule, _encouraged_. Her troop protected her, and she protected them, but they were not above thinking that she was a weird thing, too. It was clear that she would always be different. A strange, naked thing that fell out of the sky. 

And now there were strange clouds in the sky. Sitting, or more like squatting right in the bay. And Ka-Ra wondered if perhaps the scent that had her prickling along her skin might possibly belong to more unusual beings from the sky, waiting to be disgorged from the billowing whiteness like raindrops. 

It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Ka-Ra herself might have come to the jungle this way. Often she would sneak away from the troop and go examine the crater, high on the mountain where she had been found. It was no one’s territory now—the area smelled weird, to most animals, and even the chimpanzees didn’t want to feed there—and they weren’t normally picky about anything, as a rule. Ka-Ra could take handfuls of figs on her way down, and she would gorge as she looked into the empty pit that had been her entry into the world. No overgrowth touched the edges of the silvery thing that she had come from. Instead it sat, glowing and humming with an uneasy familiarity. K-Ra never quite knew what to make of it. 

These clouds felt like that. 

The silverback whuffed at her when she swung down from the top of the tree, offering to share his figs, but she politely declined, grunting quietly. There were other things on her mind. He turned his back on her, showing his trust in her, and went to play with one of the newer offspring from this year, showing his massive canines as he boxed with the youngster. Kara watched for a time, comforted by the pleasant routines of her simple life. But the nagging impulse kept returning, so eventually, she turned from her family and went in the direction of those clouds. 

She wanted to follow this strange scent, and see where it led. 

***

For all that Edge had boasted of being ‘the best tracker this side of Cape Horn’ it seemed the island’s jungle would not yield easily. 

The alpha had been sweating and hacking with his brand-new machete for the better part of two hours now, and they were no closer to making headway through the thick brush than they had been at the outskirts of camp. The ‘game trail’ Edge claimed they were on was so tightly forested that it was hard to even squeeze out a drop of sunlight, let alone find a solid path. But Edge insisted he knew what he was doing, so Lena was forced to follow along, wincing as chunks of vegetation slashed past. 

“Shan’t be long now, Lena dear.” Edge assured her, red-faced and puffing. His shirt was torn and he was bleeding in the upper arm, but Lena didn’t offer to patch it. She wrinkled her nose at the heavy smell of him, sweating and irritated. “This blasted brush is some of the worst I’ve seen, but I’ll have it down in a trice. You’ll see.”

“Perhaps we ought to return to camp.” Lena offered, trying her best to tread lightly on the alpha’s hair-trigger sense of masculine pride. “It is getting close to dusk now, and I don’t think we shall make very much headway by nightfall.”

“No.” Edge’s face flushed a deeper red. “Don’t be silly. You omegas are all so bloody impatient. Just wait there, on that log, and I’ll clear a path for you so your feet won’t get muddy.”

“I could hardly care—“ Lena protested, but the alpha had already turned his damp back on her, ignoring her as he whacked deeper into the brush. 

_Well, this is getting us nowhere._ Lena sighed, and cupped her hands, looking back down the rough path that Edge had hacked out. It was haphazard and twisting—hardly a proper walking trail. But Edge wouldn’t be told what to do by an omega, even one as highborn as she, so Lena decided to leave him to it. He didn’t even turn his head as she started back down the path, determined to at least get to a place with a better view of the mountain so she could make a sketch before dark. 

Edge’s path cut close to the river that wound down from the mountainous ridge to mingle with the sea. It was the only landmark easy to follow—the sound of rushing water was prevalent the closer one got. Lena made her way towards it, muttering to herself about alpha pride as she picked her way carefully down, holding her dress aloft with one hand and keeping the sketchbook tucked firmly under the other arm. She was so focused on not turning an ankle that she almost missed the tree—it was only when she lifted her head to squint at the sun’s position again that she saw it. 

The tree was leaning out over the ravine and the plunging waterfall below. Its branches spread wide, almost cradling the sun, and it was the only thing breaking the surface of the canopy for what looked like miles. If she climbed out onto those sturdy-looking limbs, she should be able to get a clearer view of the mountain. And a nice place to sit while she sketched. 

Mind thusly made up, Lena hitched her skirt higher and began to climb. 

Unfortunately, it was only once she was precariously off the ground that she realized her mistake. Those ‘sturdy-looking’ limbs creaked dangerously even under the slightest pressure, and she was already looking for a way back down when something rustled in the foliage above. Lena looked up, startled, into the curious brown eyes of a marmoset, blinking at her as she held her sketchbook pinched between two fingers, trying to angle her foot down to the next branch without letting go of the trunk. The marmoset made a _chirr_ ring noise, and tilted its little be-whiskered head. Lena groaned when she realized what had drawn its attention. 

“No, no, not that, don’t—“ was all she got out before the little creature made a grab for her sketchbook. Lena flung out her arm to shoo it away, thoughtlessly, and the sudden jerking movement sent her pinwheeling, flailing backwards as she fought desperately to stay upright. 

But to no avail. 

She fell, too panicked to even make a sound, right into the churning waterfall below. 

***

Ka-Ra heard the splash and didn’t think twice before she dove after it. 

She had been tracking the sky people for some time. It wasn’t hard. They were _very_ noisy. There was a male and a female, and the male had a shiny thing in his hand like a tooth that he was using to hack away at the undergrowth. He _stunk_ , and Ka-Ra wrinkled her nose in disgust as she watched. 

The female, though. She did not stink. She smelled... _nice_. Like a new fruit, or a bud about to flower. Something ripe and tender. _Sweet_.

Ka-Ra was slightly in awe of her. She had never seen another female of her own kind before, but this female did not quite seem to be her own kind. There was a sharpness about her, a fire. Her hair, piled up on her naked neck, was dark, unlike Ka-Ra’s golden curls, and her eyes were strange—two different colors, grey and green. She had a flowing pile of fabric around her legs and waist, and it made this most delightful swishing noise whenever the female walked anywhere. Ka-Ra had been following that noise, pleased by the sibilant sound and the appealing scent that was making her feel things she didn’t quite understand, when the female had veered off the path and made a sudden climb up the marmoset’s old dead tree. Ka-Ra whuffed in alarm, looking worryingly up at the ancient branches, but the female didn’t seem to hear. She didn’t seem to realize that marmosets only nested in hollowed, dead trees. 

Instead, the female had climbed. And then. She fell. 

Ka-Ra dove after her without thought. The female was one of only two of her own kind that she had ever seen, and there was no way she was going to let one drown in the space of a single day. The waterfall carried her over just as her fingers closed on the bunched fabric at the back of the female’s waist, and she gripped tightly, drawing them close together as they went plunging into the pool. 

When they came up, Ka-Ra dragged the female to shore, swimming hard against the current. Even at her strength, it was a challenge to do so one-handed, but she had to keep the female’s head above water, gasping for air, or she feared that the other would drown. The female clung to her arm, shuddering in the cold water, and her eyelids fluttered, but she made very little effort to swim. Her kicks were sluggish and weak. It took a strong effort to pull her out. 

Ka-Ra pulled them both onto the bank of the river, and grunted, shaking herself, as the female breathed raggedly into the sand. The red wrapping she wore was soaked, and she’d need to dry it or her protection against the cold would be gone. Same for the female’s strange garb. Ka-Ra cast a look at her. She was still face down, breathing heavily. Her skin was so pale. 

There was a heavy, thumping feeling in her lower body when she looked at the dark shape crumpled on the sand. 

The female moaned, eyes fluttering as she rolled over. Kara tilted her head curiously, moving closer to examine, but her posture stiffened when she realized the female was definitely hurt. Her skin, which was already pale, was an unhealthy grey around her cheeks, and her breathing was labored. There was a bluish cast to the skin around one of her ankles, and her forehead had a reddish scratch. 

Ka-Ra lifted the female as gently as she could, easing her limp body over one shoulder. Night was coming, and it would be a good idea to get somewhere dry and warm before too long, or the female might not wake up. Ka-Ra knew how to make fire—she had seen lightning strikes and had gleaned the idea slowly but surely—but she needed to do it somewhere where the wood would be dry. Not in the undergrowth. Her chin tilted up, and she looked for the mouth of the cave, far up ahead on the slope of the mountain. That would do. 

***

Lena awoke to a crackling fire, and the soft warmth of a naked body behind her own. 

Her vision was still bleary, and her heart was sluggish, slow to react, so she blinked several times before she realized she was awake. 

And, improbably enough, _alive_. 

The last thing she remembered had been the rushing swell of the water overtaking her senses. Her ears, her nose, her mouth. It had been terrifying. It felt like the end. 

And yet, she was alive, aching and sore in many places, her ankle throbbing and her head pounding—but she would survive. 

And— she was not wearing any clothes. 

That was a bit alarming, but the sudden shock of it was muted. She shifted, experimentally, but her head seared and she had to close her eyes against the pain. As she did so, an arm pulled around her waist, tightening, and a soft grunt behind her told her she was not alone. Judging by the feel of muscles and the distinctive scent, she was being held by an alpha.

A strange, naked alpha. 

Lena should have wanted to run. And there was a small, logical part of her brain shrieking alarm bells under the fog, but she was too tired and sore to listen. Her body was warm and the alpha wasn’t harming her. There was instead, a strange comfort to the strong arm around her midsection. Perhaps a familiarity. The scent of the alpha was dense and humid in her nose, like the scent of the jungle itself. 

Her eyelids drifted closed, and she nestled into the arm embracing her, sighing softly as the fire spat and sizzled. 

***


	2. Chapter 2

Lena felt she might have sustained a serious concussion during her fall and thus was having a prolonged hallucination. That was the only explanation for the vision she awoke to. A tanned, blonde Adonis of the jungle, crouching with a concerned brow over the remains of an ashen fire, looking at her while she slept. 

Also,  _ completely _ lacking in clothes to cover her nude body. 

Lena  _ shrieked _ when she came into more clarity, grasping her hands to her nakedness when she realized that she was also unclothed. She scrambled hurriedly as far away from the hulking alpha as she could, scooting her bare bottom across the cold stone, even as a flare of pain screamed up from her swollen ankle. She ignored the searing sensation, and struggled to cover herself with her closed legs and twisted body position. A woman of her age and social status was never this naked with  _ anyone _ , not even her own self, regardless of whether she was married or not. Lena was unmarried, and this was a  _ strange alpha.  _

The alpha grunted at her, low and deep like an animal. She moved closer, scent filling Lena’s lungs and making her head swoon with dizzy, frighteningly submissive thoughts. 

“Don’t!” Lena held one hand out precariously while using the other as a diagonal shield across her naked body. “You stay right there or...or I shall scream!”

_ And who exactly will hear me?  _ Her brain asked in a somewhat sardonic tone, but she ignored that, and the uncomfortable knowledge that she was probably miles away from camp. Even if she did scream, though, if Morgan were to find her in this state...well, he’d likely be even less help than this beast of an alpha, if he didn’t get flattened first. Those broad shoulder muscles looked very foreboding and made her clench in girlish, uncomfortable ways. She swallowed, hard, and felt terror thumping in her pulse. 

_ Silly, scared omega. You should have never strayed from the path.  _

The shaggy blonde head cocked at her, eyes moving with unabashed curiosity over her heaving frame. Lena tilted her face away, closing her eyes against the shame of it. She waited for the sudden, wrenching grasp on her ankle or wrist. To be dragged across the floor and…..Lena prayed it would be swift, at least—-but the expected assault never came. 

Instead, she opened one eye to see the alpha sitting on her heels on the other side of the fire. When she saw Lena look at her, the alpha made a strange, soft grunt, and held a bundle out to her. 

It was her clothing, dried from a night in front of the fire. 

“Oh.” Lena felt immediately foolish. She reached her fingers out, tentatively, and the alpha deposited her ragged dress and torn chemise into her hand. Her knuckles were scarred so heavily they almost looked white. “Th-thank you. I didn’t realize…”

But, if the alpha was offended, she said nothing, only continued to steadily regard Lena with those piercing blue eyes. She made no move to cover her own body, either, even as Lena hesitantly pulled her chemise over her head. The dress was sadly too torn to function anymore, and it hung open at the shoulder, so she left it off. It was hot in the jungle anyway, and  _ hotter _ still with the way the alpha kept looking at her. It was as if she had never seen a naked woman before—but she made no move to try to claim Lena. 

_ Curiouser and curiouser.  _ Lena blinked.  _ She could certainly have me in a trice. Those muscles don’t look underused. Oh hell, now I’ve gone and stared too long.  _

“Do you—do you live in this place?” Lena asked, aware the silence had stretched beyond appropriate limits. Her upbringing had conditioned her to avoid such awkward pauses. “I apologize. I don’t remember how I came to be here.”

Instead of responding, the alpha moved around the edge of the fire. Lena, instinctively nervous around a strange alpha like this, turned with her, but the blonde circled her slowly, apparently without malicious intent. Still, innocent or not, her gaze was as heavy as a hand and Lena felt it distinctly on her breasts and her legs. She flushed, feeling largely off-kilter and uncomfortably on display. 

“Are you alone here?”

No answer again. 

“Do you speak English?  _ Parlez vous Français? Sprechen sie Deutsch?” _

Still no verbal response, but the alpha cocked her head again, seeming to acknowledge the languages in her own silent way. The easy, predatory grace of her movements was slightly unsettling, and Lena was glad when she turned around to face front once more. “Have you lost your ability to speak, perhaps?”

And then, as the alpha continued to unblinkingly stare, it hit Lena like a sudden wave. “Oh. Or do you not speak at all?”

_Ah. As Lex would say_ _‘that is the correct hypothesis’._

Lena was unable to look away from those sharply intelligent blue eyes, but her heart twinged, a bit, at the thought of her poor, foolish brother. Morgan’s attention she could live without, and her mother didn’t pay her more than a fleeting thought at the best of times, certainly, but Lex would miss her  _ terribly _ if he thought she was lost or harmed. They were all each other had left of their father, after his ship had sank. 

She scooted closer to the fire, wincing as her ankle dragged on the stone. “My name is Lena. Do you understand?” The alpha watched her hand extend and then rest on her chest. “ _ Lena _ .”

To her immense shock and surprise, the alpha lifted a hand, slowly and carefully copying her movement with clear, focused intent. Lena almost scrambled back to the wall when the blonde spoke—so startled was she. 

“Ka-ra.” The alpha’s voice croaked out, gravelly with what was clearly it’s first use. Her palm thumped on her chest, faintly. “Ka-ra.” 

“Kara.” Lena breathed, trembling a little. The sudden revelation of the alpha’s voice was still setting in. “I see. You’re Kara.”

The alpha frowned at her and repeated again. “ _ Ka-ra _ .”

“Yes.” Lena didn’t know what more that she could say. She nodded desperately. “Kara. Yes.”

“Kara.” The alpha’s frown faded as she worked her mouth around the way Lena pronounced her name. She seemed enthralled by it. “Kara.  _ Lena _ . Kara.”

Lena was even more surprised to find how delighted she was to hear her name issue from those bruised lips. “Yes. I’m  _ Lena _ .” Her hand hovered over her chest and again she pointed to Kara. “And you’re  _ Kara _ .”

The alpha jerked her head and grunted. “Kara.”

“Yes.”

Another frown. And then a concentrated effort. “Y-es.”

Lena’s eyebrows flew up. She couldn’t help it. Despite the pain in her ankle and the instinctive fear in her body, she scooted even closer. “You’re learning fast. Quite the thinker, I see.”

The alpha only blinked at her, impassively waiting, and Lena scrambled. “Oh. Yes. Uhm...Fire?” She pointed to the ashes, still smoldering. 

“Fi-re.” Kara repeated, dutifully. 

“Yes.” Lena encouraged that with a smile, and for the first time, the alpha’s expression changed slowly to mirror hers. It wasn’t so much a smile as a grimace with teeth, to be fair, but it did seem to be a start. She was surprised at how charming the strange alpha’s effort was. 

“All right, student of mine. I suppose I’ve got no plans for my day. Let us play  _ Pygmalion  _ for as long as you fancy.”

***

Ka-Ra was learning a lot, the more time she spent away from her troop with the strange female. 

Firstly, she found she much preferred how the female called her name. It was far less deep and throaty, and Kara liked how her name sounded, now. The female—Lena— had names for everything, it seemed, whereas Kara had spent most of her life communicating in low pants and hoots with some grunts and whines interspersed. Instead, Lena seemed to want her to use her teeth and tongue a lot. And she was learning what to call her teeth and tongue. 

She learned many things, as she brought the female some collected figs and let her sip rainwater from her cupped palms. Firstly, Lena's lips were soft, and she made pleased noises when she ate, closing her eyes if the taste was right. And then she also learned the names for the figs, the water, and the trees. She learned that Lena preferred that she wind her red wrappings around her body again, covering herself more fully. 

And Lena placed her hand on her own chest, and told her she was an  _ alpha  _ and then, softly, did the same to her quivering, beating heart and told Kara the word  _ omega.  _

That made sense. The troop had similar roles, but Kara had never really seen herself as a silverback. Until now. When she looked down at Lena, feeling the heartbeat under her hand go  _ thump-thump,  _ Kara understood. The need to protect Lena was as strong in her body as it ever had been to protect her troop, but it was…. _ different _ . She wanted to nest with Lena, to feel her soft skin at night, and climb the highest trees for her in the day so she would get the youngest fruit. Lena made her want to beat her chest, stomp her feet, sing out a warrior’s song into the jungle deep. They were alike, but  _ different _ . She absorbed all of that in a flash instant, and learned that Lena was compatible with her in a way that no one in her adopted family group ever would be. 

And also that Lena did not appreciate Kara attempting to lift her skirts to smell her more closely. 

“ _ Absolutely _ not!” The female shrieked, kicking out with her injured ankle. “No!  _ No _ , Kara!”

Kara huffed, feeling more wounded by the rebuke that she only half-comprehended, than the foot in her chest. And Lena was going to hurt her ankle more if she carried on like this. She grunted and dropped the light covering the omega wore, albeit begrudgingly. 

_ How am I supposed to smell if you’re more deeply wounded? Or if you’re available or in season? Are you telling me that other creatures like me just...guess? _

“Smell Lena.” Kara explained, haltingly, using her afternoon’s worth of vocabulary. “Lena hurt.”

“Lena  _ is _ hurt.” The omega corrected, and moved to pull her foot away from Kara’s lap, but the motion made her hiss. “Ah. Yes. Definitely hurt. But you don’t...  _ smell _ people like that!”

“Lena  _ is _ hurt.” Kara repeated, and put her fingers gently on the swollen bulge of the omega’s ankle. It looked angry and uncomfortable. One of the troop’s youngsters from last year had twisted his wrist like this. Kara had fixed it, but she wasn’t sure if Lena could take the same treatment she’d given the gorilla child. She’d need to be careful. “Kara….help Lena hurt?”

“I’m not sure how you can. This ankle probably needs a doctor.” Lena grimaced, ruefully. “And that bloody ship’s medic is more like a barber surgeon. Oh, I  _ hate _ to think of what he’d do to me.”

Kara understood about a tenth of that, but she ignored it and persisted. “Kara  _ help _ .”

Her fingers slid up the smooth ball of the omega’s ankle, resting on her calf, and she could feel how Lena’s heart rate increased in tremulous pulses. She raised her eyes and found the brilliant green-grey of the omega’s gaze looking right back at her, contemplating. 

“Oh, all right.” Lena said, somewhat shakily, after a stretched-out pause. “Go ahead. Can’t be worse than that medic.”

Kara grunted, half-listening. Her other hand came to rest on the omega’s heel, cupping the ball of her foot, and she encouraged the ankle to extend. Lena hissed, quietly, but allowed Kara to move her foot without complaint. 

“Hurt.” Kara warned, carefully, and stroked the side of Lena’s calf as a pre-apology gesture. 

Little hairs there lifted to her touch, and Lena’s voice had gone all breathy and strange. “ _ Hhha- _ all right. I understand.”

Kara frowned. Lena didn’t seem to be hurt, but her eyes were all shiny and dark, and her cheeks were flushed. She was watching Kara’s fingers on her calf like they were fascinating. Kara imitated her words, rounding them carefully over her tongue. “All right.”

Then, with a sudden, savage twist of her hands, she set Lena’s ankle joint back into its socket. 

Lena yelped in pain, rolling on the floor of the cave, and her hand rose up instinctively to strike Kara, before falling helplessly to her side. “ _ Ow!  _ You—what did—“

“Hurt.” Kara said apologetically, stroking Lena’s throbbing ankle to smooth out the pain. Her dexterous, calloused fingers found the ankle joint safely resting in its socket again and she breathed easier, knowing that after a day or so of rest, Lena would be walking without aid. “Kara help.”

“You did.” Lena’s breath was still pained, but she looked down at her ankle in wonder. “Thank you, that was—well, that was clearly necessary.”

Kara wrinkled her brow. “Nest-sary?”

“Very needed.” Lena nodded at her, and then dropped back onto her elbows. “Oh good Christ, I might pass out but I think that was nest-sary indeed.”

Kara kept her hand steady on Lena’s calf, and slid her other palm up to cup Lena’s knee. She kept close, waiting patiently. Eventually, one grey-blue eye opened to regard her, watchfully. “What are you doing?”

Kara didn’t have words for what she wanted. Instead, she settled on: “Smell Lena.”

“Oh.” Both the omega’s eyes widened, and she rose up further on her elbows. “Ah. Well.” Her cheeks were pinkening. “I suppose you did help me a bit.” Then her dark eyebrows knit on her face and she narrowed her gaze. “But don’t _touch_ , understand Kara? _No_ _touch, smell only_.”

“No touch, smell only.” Kara agreed, patiently. She didn’t understand why Lena seemed to be frightened of the idea. All she wanted to do was get to know her better. Wasn’t this how people in her troop communicated?

As she moved gently between the omega’s trembling legs, she suspected probably not. 

Lena had her face turned away as Kara let her nose drift up and down her body. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her pulse was thudding violently in Kara’s sensitive ears. Her whole posture radiated tense nerves—not quite fear, but something similar. Kara’s nostrils flared, drinking it in, as she dipped her nose close to the omega’s quaking center. 

There, she drank in the lovely, plush scent of Lena, a well-fed, rarely-stressed female who smelled of lushness and abundance. Kara breathed her in slowly, processing. She could tell that the omega had been born in a place far from here, and had never done very much work. She could tell that Lena had never borne any pups, and that she was often in the presence of a related silverback ( _ alpha _ , her brain corrected silently) but not mated to anyone. 

She could tell Lena was  _ fertile _ , and that she had never been bred before. Kara didn’t know why that information had become so important, but it had. It excited some unknown, deeply held part of herself that turned over in its cave and raised its blinking head to the wind.  _ Lena is available to mate.  _

Trying not to pant with her sudden delight, Kara withdrew slowly so as not to frighten the omega, who was heaving like a trapped animal under Kara’s careful nose, and continued scenting up her belly, to her neck, moving a little closer so she could keep herself from touching Lena while she assessed to smell if there was any further injury. She couldn’t see one, but thoroughness was all on her mind at the moment. 

The omega’s closed eyes fluttered, and she swallowed, but said nothing. Her scent had warmed, though, and Kara found herself sucking it eagerly into her lungs as her breath moved over the pale, tightly-held shoulders, and up the smooth, unmarked side of Lena’s neck. She could hear Lena’s pulse much louder now, and the noise of it was almost like a song to her ears. Sweet and persuasive. 

Kara could see the little hairs on Lena’s neck rising to the warmth of her breath, and she liked to see them dance. 

“W-well.” Lena’s voice came out husky and strange. She cleared her throat, and then it was much more high-pitched. “What’s the verdict?”

Kara didn’t understand that, but she did understand that Lena was asking her a question. It was just hard to sum up her thoughts into new, clumsy words. She closed her eyes, tilting her head against Lena’s temple. “Lena smell  _ good.” _

“I most certainly do  _ not _ .” Lena’s laugh was lower, and her breathing was still all fluttery. One of her hands came up to stroke Kara’s arm, and the touch made everything in Kara’s body sing like a bird. “I smell like two days of jungle sweat and dirt. But….thank you.”

“Kara smell good?” The question was followed by a quick nudge to Lena’s side. 

Lena laughed again, and her hand moved higher, squeezing Kara’s bicep. “Yes. You silly, strange thing. You  _ do _ smell very nice. Somehow.”

“Nice.” Kara tried out the word. “Nice.”

“You’re very nice.” Lena told her, and her eyes looked liquid-y and very close. “To me. Especially.”

Kara grunted, not having the proper vocabulary to express herself. But oh, she wanted to. She wanted to tell Lena that her scent was as lovely as her face, and her hands and her eyes and her absurdly tiny feet. She wanted to tell Lena that she would protect her from the biggest leopard in the jungle if it meant she was close to that scent every day. But she couldn’t say any of those things, so she just looked, instead. 

Lena shivered, hard, and her voice went somewhere high and tight. “Oh. Dear.  _ Ah _ . Is it night again?”

Kara frowned. If Lena was cold, she could catch a chill, and then she would be sick. A sick mate would not bear healthy pups. Kara had to keep her warm. “Lena cold. Kara help. Make fire.”

She pulled away from the omega in an instant and went to the mouth of the cave to go collect more tinder, when a soft, throat-clearing sound stopped her. Lena was clutching her hands around her body, eyes luminous in the dark. Her scent had...deepened somehow. 

“Be careful, all right?” Lena cautioned, drawing a bit closer to the mouth of the cave, arms around her pale shoulders. “Be  _ safe. _ Safe, Kara.”

“Kara strong.” To prove it, she showed Lena how much her arm muscle could stand out, and that provoked a strange response—the omega barked out a sudden piercing laugh and clapped her hand over her mouth, cheeks reddening. “See? Strong. Safe.”

“I see.” Lena sounded somewhat strangled, and now Kara frowned again, concerned that she was getting sick. “You are strong. But….be safe anyhow, won’t you?”

Lena had drawn close enough now to touch, and her hand came shakily out, easing onto Kara’s cheek as if drawn there. Kara closed her eyes and nuzzled into the touch, heart ecstatic at this display of interest from her prospective mate. Lena’s breath was uneven, and her heartbeat even more erratic than usual, but she leaned in and pressed her lips to the crown of Kara’s head. 

And that—that soft, dry press of her mouth—Kara’s heart was thumping huge and heavy in her chest and she looked at Lena with wanting eyes. 

“Come back to me.” Lena said, softly. She withdrew back into the cave, and Kara’s body already howled at her loss. “Be safe and  _ come back _ .”

“Yes.” Kara told Lena, with all the fervor she felt, and climbed down the edge of the cave mouth to the jungle below, feeling all the while like she was floating. 

***


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This rightly should have been an update around Christmas but better late than never, eh?

It was three days before Lena’s ankle had healed well enough for her to leave the cave, and by then, she had already started to fall in love with the jungle. 

The trees stretched, ageless and expansive, into the far green distance in every direction, until she cupped her palm and could see the blue glint of the ocean. They were taller than the steam towers of London, taller than the masts of her father’s old great galleon, taller than the steeple of the cathedral in her childhood memory which had once seemed to her to be a finger into the very eye of God. Now she could see they were all but saplings compared to these ancient behemoths, little children hiding below the skirts of their mother. These trees were  _ grandmothers _ . 

Great, girthy things they were, with trunks as wide across as an automobile, and all choked about with lianas and creeper vines. The air between them was close, and hardly any light penetrated below the spread of their wide, reaching branches, leaving the forest floor like a dark sponge, covered in decay and smelling (rather pleasantly) of old rotting leaves and earth. Higher up, the light bloomed in wider swaths, giving way to bromeliads and bright spots of color. Flowers the size of Lena’s whole face and shaped like gramophone trumpets. Explosions of tiny buds in dewy bunches dangling from branches like children’s rattles. Little frogs hopping about, painted in lurid, dangerous color, stalked everywhere by quick green snakes. Trundling, marching lines of ants, braceleting the branches, stretching across gaps. Higher still, and the branches widened, and gave way to troops of monkeys, marmosets, bands of parrots—raucous, delightful, chaotic, and noisy.

Then, at the very tip of it, the world opened up over the sea of green, the sky was close enough to touch, and the wind was alive and running all over, rippling like a tide. Wonder beyond wonder. A Serengeti in the clouds. 

In this strange and eerie place where life existed in stages of light, nothing was as it seemed. The  _ vines _ were the highway of the forest, not the floor—indeed, down there one could hardly move in between fallen logs, twisted hummocks of brush, and dense crops of greedily-crowded ferns—and they were the only way of passing through the canopy. It was on the fourth day in the jungle when Kara showed her exactly how that worked. 

“Oh. Oh goodness, no.” Lena balked away from the wide brown palm patiently outstretched to her. “You  _ can’t _ be serious.”

“Lena. Trust.” Kara repeated, calmly. She had hardly blinked a lash since taking Lena halfway up a massive banyan and then grabbing hold of an absurdly-thin-looking liana as if she intended to leap off the twenty-foot branch into the air. And apparently, she expected Lena to join her. 

“Lena  _ does _ trust, but Lena does  _ not _ trust the strength of that vine.” The omega felt sick to her stomach, edging closer to the tree’s broad trunk with her feet careful on the damp moss. “That looks far too thin to hold  _ you _ , let alone both of us. Have you ever done this with two people?”

Kara only gave her a characteristic low puff of air that Lena had come to learn was rather derisive. “Strong enough for two.  _ Trust _ .”

“Kara, I really don’t—“ Lena started to protest further, but then her backing foot slipped on a wet patch of lichen or slime mold, and her breath caught on a high, terrified noise as she started to fall, hands grabbing desperately for anything that wasn’t the horrid emptiness of air. 

_ Whump!  _

All the breath left her lungs when Kara’s arm made contact with her midsection. The alpha had leaped easily from the branch, one hand on the still-thin-looking liana, and the other tucked Lena close to her body as they dangled, their weight easily supported by the deceptive vine. The wrinkle on her forehead spoke both of worry and also exasperation. “Lena trust  _ now? _ ”

“Yes.” Lena wheezed, pathetically. “I do see your point.” 

Kara beamed at her, looking far too pleased in her words to be worth being mad at for being right, and crushed Lena closer to her body. With an easy swing, she propelled them forward, and Lena was treated to not only the dizzying rush of sudden gravity defiance, but also the good clean sweaty scent of Kara and her fast, thumping pulse, smashed against Lena’s face while they swung through the air. 

It felt like flying, the way Kara travelled. It was like magic, the kind Lena had believed in as a child and had long ago abandoned to the cruel and weary weights of the world. This was not weighted. It was  _ weightless _ . It was swinging up with a breathless, stomach-dropping arc, and then hurtling downward in the jealous pull of gravity, only to have their bodies jerked into safety by Kara’s hand finding another vine, swinging them over another branch, sliding them along creepers, until Lena wasn’t afraid anymore and she was holding onto Kara tightly from wonder and delight, laughing giddily as Kara swung her across the canopy faster than a cable car. 

And it  _ was _ magic, the whole place was magic. It was apparent even in whizzing views past Lena’s overtsimulated eyes. She knew that from the first day here. It was a wild, glorious place, untouched by the hand of man, abundant and fertile, and the largeness of the trees and the flowers wasn’t the only thing that was of wonder in the jungle. There were gatherings of creatures here that she had never seen—brown hairy forest elephants, smaller than the ones she had ridden as a girl in India, but no less fearsome than the massive grey beasts usual to Africa. Forest antelope with twisting horns and rich, russet fur, painted with white stripes across their eyes like bandits. Brightly colored birds who bobbed and danced on branches, and made elaborate nests in hollows of trees. Creatures strange and unusual, things no book had ever described to her—neither the hoariest tome in her father’s great study, nor the library at Oxford had ever contained such wonders. 

All of it was  _ here _ , thriving in the wave of the fallen star. And maybe that was the source of the wild magic here—some vague part of Lena’s brain wondered that. But, when she looked at Kara’s oddly intelligent, fierce blue eyes, she forgot all about falling stars and could only think of the tight feeling in her chest and the dense beat of her heart. 

And maybe the jungle wasn’t the only thing Lena had fallen in love with, after three more days. 

Kara was...unlike any alpha Lena had ever known. And it was breathtaking, how simply that fact caught at Lena’s heart. Lena had only known alphas from school, and the circles she frequented back in London. They were, to a rule, arrogant, boorish and constantly focused on  _ that one thing.  _ Lena had immediately thought that a primal form of an alpha would be those hateful qualities distilled, magnified into overpowering prescience. But that was not the case. Could never be the case, with an alpha like Kara. Yes, the alpha was feral and strange, but she was also silly, and sweet, and endlessly  _ kind _ . 

And that was the strangest thing of all. 

Watching Kara move through the trees, her capable hands wide and outstretched to catch the next handful of ropey vine...Lena felt the heat from more than just the sun. The muscles that rippled under her bronzed skin were hard as iron, and when Lena held on tightly to the alpha’s shoulders, she could feel the way they bulged and shifted in easy accordance with her motion, and it made the omega blush and tense in her lower places. 

Kara seemed blithely unaware of her girlish foolishness, thankfully enough. The alpha was as unmoved by the sting of an insect or the piercing of a thorn as she was by Lena’s well-bred fluster. It took her a few days but Lena finally caught on— Kara simply paid no concern to anything that wasn’t essential. There was no room for error in her world. She moved with innate, careless confidence, as if always trusting that the vines would be there when she reached. Lena had no idea how she did it. 

Kara was patient with Lena’s inexperience, and proved a gentle—although exacting—tutor. She guided Lena away from the still water where the omega had leaned to cup her palm to drink, and showed her the place where the stream ran swift and clean, watching the omega exclaim over the cold with something like mirth in her blue eyes. Kara showed Lena which fruits were edible, and, through a grotesque pantomime, which would make her stomach quite unsettled, and Lena laughed and laughed at how alpha mimed the action of vomiting with her eyes cartoonishly rolled. Never in her life had she belly-laughed like that in the presence of another human. Every day she felt like Kara was peeling away the layers of her life—first the tatters of her impractical dress, and then the pieces of Lena’s conditioned propriety. 

And it was startling, how little she found she missed it. 

It wasn’t as if she had no regard for her brother. She thought of him often, in the childlike excitement over some massive new fruit or flower, or the awe in seeing the elephants move silently through the forests, like ghosts. She was certain he’d love it all as much as she did. But thinking of Lex for too long invariably led her back to thoughts of going back to camp...and that was one trail she did not want to go down. Not yet. 

She knew it would be a relatively easy thing, to return. The camp was on the shoreline, and she remembered that the sun had been behind her shoulders when she set out. It would be a matter of a scant half hour or so to navigate there with Kara swinging her on the vines, tightly-pressed bodies in an easy glide across the tangled forest. No time at all, really. But still, she hesitated.  _ Lingered _ , perhaps was the better word. 

At first, the ankle proved a fine excuse. The joint was tender for many days, and even though Kara’s brute tactic with the twisting had worked quite well, it was still sore to walk on, much less hobble back to camp. Kara had stayed close in the cave then, and studiously kept the omega busy teaching her new words, while sometimes allowing Lena on small jaunts to collect figs, or watch Kara collect water. Every day she strengthened, and Kara moved them further and further from the safety of the cave, deeper in the jungle, and now the ankle was no more a problem to her than a minor buzz of pain every now and again, and her head had healed just fine, but there was no rush in her body, no desire to return to the shore. 

Especially not when she thought of what else awaited her at camp. 

The impending marriage to Morgan Edge had not been Lena’s idea. Not in the slightest. But the Edges were well-to-do  _ nouveau riche  _ and Lex was interested in Morgan’s savagery in the boardroom, so the courting had a sort of inevitability to it. Gravity of a more somber, unpleasant kind than the thrill of the vines. The Luthors no longer had much to their name aside from the name itself, after her father’s ship sank—and all their largesse with it. It was necessary that, as the only omega daughter, Lena make some sacrifices to allow her brother to succeed. They’d agreed upon this. And it wouldn’t be terrible—at least Morgan was young and decently handsome, compared to some of the matches that had been arranged for her friends. There had been days—before the long voyage and the grating irritation of his constant presence—that Lena had even considered that she might be lucky in that the tiresome alpha might prove a halfway decent lover, judging by his stamina in arguments and the way he sat a horse. She knew her duty. Morgan was a perfectly acceptable part of it. 

But every night, Lena slept in the curve of another alpha’s body, and dreamed of rough hands touching her bare, private skin—Kara’s hands, and decidedly  _ not _ Morgan’s. 

It was a predicament. And not made easier by the sleeping arrangements, truth be told. But the first night they’d spent away from the cave, Lena had tried to make a fire only to have Kara put a hand sharply over the flint she’d found, frowning and shaking her head. The alpha clearly pantomimed a fire, and explained in her rough tongue that the ground was too wet for that. They were not in the cave anymore, with its rough, dry stone. But the night was cold, and the ground was soggy and uncomfortable, ill-suited for sleep. Lena couldn’t see how it would be done. 

Instead, Kara scaled the nearest tree, easily as a monkey, and made a kind of rough nest in the wide branches toward the base, of folded banana leaves and palm fronds. It was fascinating, how quickly and efficiently she did it—as if it were something she’d done every night of her life—and Lena was so engrossed in the process that she had barely moved when Kara finished. The alpha grunted with pleasure at her success, and then, swinging down to the ground, she pulled the startled omega up the tree, tugged Lena into the nest, and into her  _ embrace _ , with hardly the batting of an eye. 

At first, Lena was so taken aback that she went stiff as a board, certain this was a precursor to some kind of more intimate act. Her polite voice broke out on a high, thin noise of protest, but Kara only grunted at her, and made a low  _ whuff _ as if to say ‘ _ quiet down I’m trying to sleep’,  _ which made her blush in foolishness. Lena lay rigidly for a time, tensed in anticipation and unsure of how to arrange her limbs so that she didn’t risk them tangling with Kara’s. She didn’t know how to sleep with her body so close to that of a stranger’s....and it was in the midst of that confusion, somehow, that she drifted. 

And when she woke, her legs had slipped hip-to-thigh with Kara’s and the alpha was holding her again, arm across her chest with a kind of careless sweetness, snoring lightly. The night was chilly around them, and the jungle echoed with strange sounds, frightening shrieks and grunts. But Kara was warm and solid as a tree trunk, and if she was asleep, perhaps that meant it was safe. So Lena had laid her head back down, closed her eyes, and banished one of the lingering gasps of polite protest in her brain as she snuggled into the alpha’s body as shameless as a trollop, aware that none of the clucking tongues in London could see her anyhow. 

And that was how they slept, every night. 

Tucked together in the reedy, fresh-cut-grass smell of the nest, close as lovers. Lena’s head resting on Kara’s broad, oddly comfortable chest, warming each other with their bodies. It was remarkably effective—and not just because Lena’s cheeks would flush, every night, at the nearness and the muskiness of alpha scent, thick from a day of traveling the vines. The folded leaves seemed to trap their body heat, keeping the nest a toasty, comfortable little furnace...but only if she stayed close to Kara. If she rolled away, in the morning she’d find herself chilled to the bone and covered in a spiderweb blanket of dew. It was far nicer to stay close, and risk a little embarrassment at her shameless quest for Kara’s warmth. 

It wasn’t like the alpha was going to shame her—Kara would probably have preferred much less fluster, if anything. But it felt bizarre and wholly alien to surrender herself to the bare vulnerability of sleep in the presence of a strange alpha this way. Nothing in her polite, country estate upbringing had prepared her for this, certainly, and even without a wagging finger under her nose, Lena knew this was treading on the line of some boundary between alpha and omega that was best left untouched. Sometimes she wondered if Kara really would give in to those primal instincts in the night….and the most shameful part of her  _ wanted _ the alpha to. 

Kara, as always, seemed to understand so much without being told, and assuaged both Lena’s fears and her private longing. The alpha appeared to spend most of her night half-awake, on the alert for anything like trouble to the nest and its occupants. Whenever Lena’s drowsy eyelids raised, Kara was almost always already awake, on guard. And that was….oddly touching. And comforting. In its own, primitive way. So she slept in Kara’s arms soundly as a babe, knowing she was safe, and didn’t think much about the duties and realities of her life, awaiting her back at the camp. 

But that didn’t mean she  _ didn’t _ remember that they existed, in the back of her subconscious mind, and as the days ticked away in the jungle of idyllic idolatry...the guilt began to nag more and more at her consciousness. 

**

Kara had never, ever, been this happy. 

Her life in the gorilla tribe had not been unpleasant, of course, but more or less just...comfortable. Content. Leaps of emotion had been rare, and usually unwelcome. Gorillas did not particularly enjoy intense displays—that was the purvey of the chimpanzees, generally, and the whole forest feared and disliked them for it. Kara had not uprooted a tree or thrown a boulder in tantrum since childhood, and such frivolous spending of emotion would shame her now. 

Kara had learned, long ago, to settle into the simple pleasures of her life. The taste of a young shoot. The firm grip of a vine. The pleasant warmth of seeing her family group all arrayed on a fig tree, eating to their heart’s content with no predators about. These things were calm waves. They had never raised a storm in Kara’s heart, for good or for ill, before. 

But now, every day was a different kind of bliss, and it made her want to tear up trees and fling boulders around in joy instead. 

Every day, she showed Lena the qualities and offerings of her home. The fruits, loamy crops of mushrooms, many small prey animals, good clean water, fine nesting materials, and high, sturdy trees. The area was rich in resources, plenty to be shared with a veritable brood of offspring, and there was no drought, no seasonal shortage to pose a risk to their tribe of two, even if it grew to more. Kara was certain that a capable and intelligent female like Lena would be impressed with such abundance, and, to the delight of the alpha’s heart, she  _ was _ . 

Kara took the omega to the very top of the canopy, and to the lowest dripping cave. She showed her where the butterflies gathered to sip minerals from the iron-ruddy ground, and where the elephants danced. She showed Lena the secret watering hole used by all of the forest’s animals, glittering and clean, and felt a shiver in her bones when the omega lifted her cupped palms to take a drink and spilled some water down her front. 

Lena made Kara feel that way often—itchy, shivery, suddenly restless. There was a hot flare every time the omega leaned in close, or put her warm hand on Kara’s arm. And at night, when Lena curled into her chest, Kara felt like her body could heat the entire island on sheer pride alone. 

Lena was a constant source of joy, and more than that—a new way to view the world. Kara had never used her face or her vocal chords to communicate as much as she did now, and it was strangely natural. It was  _ good _ to be around another of her own kind, and better still to be able to converse outside of simple grunting and gestures. 

At first though, smiling had seemed threatening and unfamiliar—a baring of teeth or a casual display of strength—and she struggled with the strange high sound of Lena’s laughter, which often was often sudden and startling. Chimpanzees were given to these chaotic displays, and they were unpredictable and violent. Gorillas avoided them, as a rule. It was unsettling that Lena would behave like one of the chimp tribe, because Lena, certainly was not a chimp. Kara didn’t know what to make of it, at first. As the days went by, however, Kara learned that Lena’s happiness was conveyed in these noises and facial gestures, and, frankly, that was all she needed to consider them precious. 

Slowly, language and thought began to form in Kara’s brain, arranging itself alongside the things she knew. There had been no word for ‘vine’ in her mind—just the feeling of it, the green heft in her palm, the grabbing feeling. Now she could see it, as clearly as she could feel the arc of its swing, and the feeling was strengthened by the word. She looked at the vine and thought  _ ‘vine’ _ . And that experience, as simple as it was for others, was a world apart for Kara. 

Looking at Lena wasn’t so simple to define. There was  _ ‘Lena’ _ , and  _ ‘omega’ _ , yes, but also  _ ‘warm’ _ and  **_‘good’_ ** and  _ ‘smart’ _ , and those were words that combined in a way that represented Lena even better than the word of her name. Kara didn’t quite understand how one person, human or animal, could mean so many different things at once, but it was dazzling, even as it was confusing. She wanted to learn all the definitions Lena had to offer. To memorize them as cleanly as she had memorized  _ ‘fig’ _ and  _ ‘flower’ _ and  _ ‘footprint’ _ . 

There was also the problem of the word  _ ‘mine’ _ . It was coming up a lot, whenever she looked too long at Lena’s green eyes. It was thudding in her chest and thumping in her veins, buzzing all around her ears. It wasn’t enough of a word to describe how she felt, not enough at  _ all _ , but that didn’t stop her from thinking it. Often. 

With that word nagging at her heart every time her eyes lingered, Kara decided on a risk, and took Lena to meet her foster family. The gorilla tribe had moved higher up the mountain since Kara had last been with them, but they were easy enough to track, leaving a wide swath of foraging path behind. It still took Kara and Lena the better part of a day to find them.

At first, it did not go well. 

The silverback hooted gently when Kara emerged from the undergrowth, but bared his canines immediately and rose up on his hind limbs as soon as Lena tentatively stepped out. The omega sucked in a tight, fearful breath and clutched at Kara’s arm, but the alpha only hooted back, resolutely returning the call of  _ ‘family, safety _ ’ despite the group’s obvious concern. The silverback banged his chest at her, gripping a fistful of grass in alarm when he dropped back down to his forelimbs, backing up to a kapok tree. He didn’t seem to be taking the message to heart. 

“Kara—“ Lena started, quiet and tense. 

Kara shook her head at the omega—a newly learned gesture— and turned back to the gorilla group. Using a low tone that was only just audible to human ears, she calmed her foster father, assuring him that Lena was no threat. Her body language helped to usher this sentiment along further, dragging her knuckles on the ground and deliberately looking unconcerned up and away. 

The old silverback let out a low grunt. He scuffed at the ground in front of his massive frame, his knuckles also dragging in the dirt, but much quicker and with more reticence than Kara’s gesture. He pulled himself into a sitting position and half-turned his back, regarding the alpha over one shoulder as if to say  _ okay, but you’re in trouble, kid.  _

Kara ignored him, tenderly. The male was a good defender of his troop, and only wanted the best for them, but he did tend to be overly paranoid. Some of the youngsters had already taken the cue and started to approach, rustling the undergrowth as they popped out of hiding. At her side, Kara heard Lena take in a low, awed breath. 

“Oh  _ my _ .” The omega’s grip loosened at Kara’s arm, and slid into her hand, twining the fingers there. “Is this your family?”

Kara gave her a fond glance and encouraged a younger gorilla forward with an extended hand. “Yes.”

“They’re  _ beautiful _ .” Lena told her, eyes shining with her sincerity, as the group slowly converged on them in open interest at the strange newcomer. 

And that only made Kara’s great heart beat faster inside her chest, blood pumping away as she gave the omega a foolish chimpanzee grin. 

Introductions with the rest of the troop went smoother, even with Kara’s foster mother, a now-middle-aged female with kindly brown eyes and a tender demeanor. The huge gorilla female took to the omega human with none of the reticence of her mate—she hooted lowly and gave Kara breathy  _ ‘haha _ ’s of excitement when Lena tentatively came closer, and the great bristled hairs of her hand brushed Kara’s cheek, gently, before she reached out and did the same to Lena’s. The omega was breathlessly quiet, and maybe a little overwhelmed, but she squeezed Kara’s hand tightly in her own as the gorilla female gave her a welcoming sniff and a careful once-over. After she was done, she pulled Lena into her embrace, and although the omega gave a squeak of surprise, her delighted laugh rang out soon after. 

It was a good day. A very, very good day. 

At dusk, the troop began to split off, gathering nesting material to take to the trees for the night. Kara grunted a fond farewell to her mother and her newest ‘sibling’, as they retreated for an old marula tree—one of favorites of the gorilla family for it’s wide spread of branches. When she turned back to the omega, Lena was peering down the side of the mountain, brow knitting. 

“Kara, however are we going to get back to where we were before nightfall?”

“We stay here.” Kara told her, pulling the omega close and pointing out the marula tree. “Home here. Good sleeping tree.”

“Home?” Lena wrinkled her brow further, her scent questioning and slightly querulous. “You mean for us to stay here?”

“Yes.” Kara could have hesitated, but her lack of language forced her to put it more bluntly. She gave Lena’s waist a gentle squeeze. “Kara home is Lena home, too.”

Lena frowned, and her hand came up to rest on Kara’s chest. “Kara, this isn’t my home. You know that.”

“Could be home.” Kara coaxed, carefully. Her fingers dared to brush Lena’s cheek, whispering across the unmarked surface of her skin. “Could be.”

Lena’s lip quivered. Her eyes were glossy in the glow of sunset. But then she shook her head, resolute. “Kara, no. I have to go back. To my brother, and to—-to Morgan. You don’t understand.”

Now it was Kara’s turn to frown. “Kara is better alpha. Stronger. Lena  _ safe _ here. Kara protect.”

“I don’t  _ need _ to be protected.” Lena wrenched suddenly away from Kara’s arms and the alpha let her go, startled. “You alphas are all the same, whether you grew up in London or the middle of the bloody African jungle! I’m not some frail butterfly, you know. I can do for myself!”

“Lena—“ Kara’s lack of language was failing her, horribly. Of course she knew Lena didn’t  _ need _ to be protected, but—that was what she could offer, wasn’t it? What else could an omega need from her but protection and loving devotion? Kara could offer those things in spades. If only Lena could see….

She reached out again, only intending to touch the omega’s hand, but Lena flung it up in furious indignation. 

“Leave me be, you great nursemaid! I don’t want your help. I want to be alone and  _ think _ .”

And with that, the omega started down the hillside, slapping the brush out of her way and muttering to herself as she went. Kara watched her go in silent alarm, well aware of how easily one could get lost on the mountain, and cast a despairing look up at the dimming sky. She had two choices—stay here and give Lena her way, or follow and risk the omega tearing into her like a ripe fruit. 

Swallowing hard, Kara chose the second option, mentally cursing herself for her inability to communicate effectively.

It was getting altogether darker and more dangerous the further down the mountain she went, following the easy trail that Lena had crashed through the undergrowth, and Kara’s nerves were rising by the minute. She was scenting the earth, picking up traces of the omega’s lingering anger fading into something like misery, when there was a sudden rapid rustling of leaves about thirty paces downhill to her right, followed by a wrenchingly-familiar high-pitched scream. 

_ Lena is in trouble! _

Kara didn’t think beyond the sudden terror those words invoked. She dove headlong down the hill, heedless of the scratches of thorns. The alpha put her head down and barreled through the brush, chest pounding with compounded fear and worry and frustration. Her cannonball momentum carried her over the hillock and down into a sudden gulley where a dead stream sat, sullen and swollen with leaves and muck, hanging about with gnats in the thin light. Kara’s bare feet splashed through the mud, touching down, and she whipped her head in all directions, trying to catch the scent. 

It only took a second to locate Lena. 

The omega was down, half-covered in mud, arm raised up to defend herself as she backed hurriedly away, scrabbling with one hand reaching behind her. Advancing slowly on her, teeth bared and hide rippling with scars, the leopard came on, it’s lean body showing the deficit of it’s advanced age. It had not fared well in the years since its last encounter with Kara—there was a limp to its paw and its hips stuck out like tree stumps. A pink-skinned, defenseless human like Lena would clearly be an easier kill than an antelope buck, and perhaps one of the last it would be able to muster before the grim fog of death covered its eyes. Gathering its muscles below the rosetted coat, the leopard bunched and sprang, claws extended. 

Lena dropped her arm to cover her face, helplessly, and screamed again, high and terrified, as the leopard launched toward her prone frame. 

But Kara got there first. 

The alpha had never known true speed until that moment. Her feet hardly seemed to leave the ground. Her body felt weightless, and her strength immeasurable. When she moved to leap in front of Lena’s defenseless form, it was hardly half a blink before she was there, hand up on the leopard’s throat, keeping the raking claws inches from her face. 

The spotted cat spat and snarled, swinging with all its might for Kara’s face, and, behind her, she heard Lena’s gasp of terror. Kara grunted and caught the heavy paw with her free hand, forcing the claws away, but the beast wriggled like an eel in her grip, hind paws coming up to pummel at her chest. Kara dropped the cat’s paw, wincing as massive claws lanced into her skin, but there was no hot spurt of blood. Instead, the leopard only wrenched on her shoulder like a hand, yowling in her grasp, and failed to gain any purchase. Kara roared the deep bellow of a silverback in full challenge, and when the leopard swatted her again, she crushed its throat with a powerful flex of her hand, feeling the spine crunch below her fingers in a sickening rattle of fractured bone. 

The leopard dropped like a stone from her hand, dead at last, and Kara beat her chest, drumming out a roaring victory over the defeated enemy to the coming night. She gave throat to her conflicted feelings of glory and remorse and protective fury in one long, rising howl that came from deep in her sternum and went out through the gullet like an exhale. 

When it was done, she panted over the leopard’s corpse, and felt the myriad of emotions wash over her like rain. Her blood was still pounding in her ears, hot and heavy, and she hardly noticed Lena behind her on the ground...until the omega touched her leg, and she whirled, so startled that she stumbled. And fell. 

Kara landed half on top of Lena, crouched over her with her arms braced into the mud and leaves, lower body fit snugly between the omega’s open thighs. The sudden heat of contact forced a noise from both of their lips—Lena’s was a sharp, breathy thing that raised all the hairs on the back of Kara’s arms. The omega’s eyes were a wide, violent shade of dark green, and her lips were flushed red with her panting, heavy breaths. She put a hand up on Kara’s chest again, but this time her palm slid further up, curling around the alpha’s neck. 

“You—-you saved me.” Lena’s voice had a strange, mesmerizing lull to the whispered words. Her eyes were so open. Her lips were so red. Kara found she was leaning heavily closer. “I was a fool, Kara, and I almost killed both of us,  _ again _ .”

Lena let out a high, strange laugh, and pulled on Kara’s neck, urging her even closer. “I suppose I will always find a way to be stupid when it comes to you.”

Her lips were so close. The heat of her breath was damp. Kara closed her eyes. She wasn’t even sure what they were doing, but the closer Lena got, the more her heart raced, and the more she felt like she needed to—-

A sudden sharp crack in the underbrush on the far left side of the gulley had Kara’s ears pricking up, eyes shooting open and her head swiveling round, teeth bared in a protective growl as she arched over Lena’s chest. Her heart was still hammering from her fight with the leopard and her emotions felt sharp-edged. And then a voice echoed out. 

“ _ Lena?” _

There were two alphas at the far end of the gulley. One was smaller, and looked vaguely like Lena, in the eyes. He was the one who had called out. The other was larger, and carrying some kind of metal stick. When he saw Kara hunched over Lena, he raised the stick, and aimed at them both. Kara didn’t know what he was doing, but she knew a threat when she saw one. 

Snarling, she launched herself over the omega’s prone, muddy body toward the alphas just as the end of the metal stick exploded into fiery light. 

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! It’s been a bit, hope you all had a good Valentine’s and are staying warm despite a massive infrastructure failure across America! I have had major brain fog, but updates are resuming shortly, thank you for bearing with.

“Kara,  _ no!” _

Lena’s heart was in her ears, or perhaps blocking her tongue. She didn’t know. It felt like the rapid thumping was going to swell and swell until it tore her body apart. One moment before, she had been feeling hot-blooded from her rescue and the possibility of an impending kiss, and now she was being torn in two, rent asunder by the screaming of her own lungs. 

Morgan had a hunter’s aim, and it was true. The bullet exploded into Kara’s chest, as the alpha swung upright from the mud, snarling like a lion. Lena  _ screamed _ —but there was no blood. 

No blood at all. 

And Kara did not fall. Or stagger. Or even pause. 

And Lena did not have time to settle into her relief and surprise, because Kara was still moving. Kara charged into Morgan, bowling him over as easily as the tree root had upended Lena earlier, and grabbed his rifle before the startled alpha could even scream. Growling deep enough to shake the sodden ground, Kara raised the rifle above her head, and twisted it. Just….bent it in half. A lethal weapon hammered out on the iron of industry made into a useless hunk of metal in a sudden savage grip of Kara’s hands. 

Lena blinked. Seconds earlier those hands had been gently touching her face as if she were the finest of porcelain. The same hands that had held her close, each night, in the tree nest. Those hands. Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding, and realization was hitting her like the lapping waves on the side of the  _ Merry Ida.  _

The alpha dropped the ruined gun to the ground, and hammered her miraculously-unbloodied chest over Morgan’s stunned face. Her roar was loud, and long, and echoed into the fading light. 

Lex hardly moved. His eyes were rounded and moved between Kara and Lena as if calculating at the speed of light. He raised his palms, carefully, and Kara whirled on him, snarling with her eyes red. Lena suddenly knew, with frantic terror, that Kara could rip her beloved older brother in half with quite a considerable bit of ease, so she surged upwards, staggering in the mud, and called out. 

“Kara!  _ Stop _ ! It’s my brother. My  _ family.” _

Somehow time slowed long enough for her to stumble to Kara’s side, touching the alpha’s heaving flank with a tentative hand. When Kara turned to her, eyes blazing with white-red edges, she almost shrank back to the filthy ground, insides curling in fear, but managed to stay upright with a soothing hand on the alpha’s inner elbow, petting and stroking. “Kara. It’s alright, I promise.”

Gradually the familiar, welcoming blue filtered back, and the alpha blinked down at Lena. “This...your brother?” 

She gestured at Morgan, still half crouched in the mud. Lena couldn’t help it—she made a desultory noise that had her swiftly covering her mouth at his wounded, angry look. “Him? No. Not him. He’s a….friend.” She waved at Lex, hurriedly. “ _ That’s _ my brother.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Lex had his usual half-smile firmly back in place, but Lena could tell by the beads of sweat on his brow that he was just as in awe of that impossible feat of strength as she was. And that was not good. Lex being in awe of things generally led to…. _ trouble _ . “Lena dear, are you... alright?”

_ Are you intact _ was the question he was really asking, but polite wordage was just as blunt, somehow. She flushed, suddenly angry at his priorities. “Yes. I’m quite fine. As you can see, Kara has been keeping me safe.”

At that, Kara gave her a pleased look that had that familiar heat rolling through her body again. She put her hand more firmly on the bunched muscles of Kara’s arm and looked up into her eyes, searching.  _ Kept me safe, yes. And I never even questioned for a moment how easy it was for her to do so. No, I only wanted to swoon every time she’d carry me, and all the while she was apparently bulletproof and strong as ten apes.  _

_ Lord, what on Earth have I found here? _

“Kara.” Lex sounded out the name, and Kara’s head swiveled to him, cocking in recognition. “Well, that’s a lovely name. And where did you—“

“Will  _ someone _ help me up?” Morgan’s exasperated raised voice interrupted Lex’s gears turning. “This bloody mud is like tar, and that  _ savage _ bent my rifle in  _ half!” _

“Well, you shouldn’t have raised it at my sister, you dolt.” Lex retorted primly, and extended a hand with a wrinkled lip of distaste at how Morgan pulled him off balance to clumsily jerk upright. Her brother wiped his hand on his vest, irritably, but he never took his eyes off Kara, even as he spoke to Morgan. “Far too close for comfort, I say man. What were you thinking?”

“I was  _ thinking _ she was under attack.” Morgan protested, haughty as ever even as he only succeeded in smearing mud all over his fine white jodhpurs. “We’d spent the better part of three days hacking about in this godforsaken jungle before we heard a scream, and legged it up this hill to find her under a—“

“Mr.  _ Edge _ .” Lena interrupted him, finger closing firmly on Kara’s arm. “The scream you heard was indeed mine, and I was  _ indeed _ under attack. From a leopard. Which, as you can see—“ Lena gestured to the broken dappled corpse lying in the mud only a meter or so away—“Kara had already managed quite handily by the time you arrived.”

“By  _ Jove _ .” Lex exclaimed, coming forward to examine the leopard’s body, just as Morgan’s face twisted sourly. “That is the biggest ‘pard I’ve ever  _ seen _ . It has to be the size of a bloody Bengal tiger. How on  _ earth _ did you manage to kill it?”

Kara looked startled at being asked to speak, and perhaps, just a bit shy. She even toed the ground a bit, like a naughty child. It was oddly endearing, even after what Lena had just seen. “It old. Not strong. Easy kill.”

“Well that has to be quite the understatement—“

“Impossible.” Morgan’s snort had them all turning. He looked sullen and half his hair was dripping with mud which made his pallid face look ugly, rather than handsome. “No one could kill a cat that size without a gun. It must’ve died earlier.”

“I would venture to say we’ve seen Lena’s friend do a great many impossible things already. Morgan old chap.” Lex hadn’t taken his eyes off of Kara’s broad chest, but the implication was not sexual. His intent, hawklike gaze had zeroed in right where the bullet wounds  _ should _ be...but they weren’t there. “I would definitely not put it out of the realm of probability.”

Lena felt her gut twist at the keen, eager way he was examining Kara, but there was nothing for it now. 

“Come.” Lex opened his arm to her. “Let us return to camp. Kara is welcome to join us, of course.”

_ Of course.  _ Lena didn’t think he’d give his prize up now for all the world. Kara was  _ interesting _ and that was the worst thing of all to be around a Luthor. 

But Kara was looking at her in askance, so she had no other choice but to nod, and force a tight smile. “Yes. Let’s go.”

“Here.” Morgan stepped forward, removing his outer jacket. It was stained horribly down the back but otherwise intact. “Protect your modesty, Lena dear.”

Lena wanted to laugh, even as she took the jacket and let the sodden weight settle around her shoulders.  _ Modesty _ . As if she hadn’t been sleeping in Kara’s arms every night for the past days. Still, she suspected, as she watched Morgan eye the strange alpha up and down, sizing her up, that was exactly what Morgan feared. And she could hardly go to the camp in her shimmy, anyway. She gripped the dense houndstooth and felt a shiver in her body that was not from cold or damp. 

Kara looked at her, cautious as ever, and she forced herself to smile again, even though it was now Lena who felt she needed reassurance. There was a sudden, wild urge to tuck herself into Kara’s arms again, to beg her to grab a vine and get them  _ away _ . Back to the peace of the gorilla family, to the sanctity of the cave, to the quiet, wonderful life so far from her own world that it had seemed a dream. Now, she was waking up, and remembering why it had been so easy to slip away from. But there was no going back. 

It was all going to change, now. 

***

And indeed, change it did. 

Kara made quite the impression on the journey back, swinging overhead. Lex kept an eye on her progress above them as they followed Morgan’s crudely hacked trail in hampered, slow steps down the mountain. His questions came thick and fast. “Where did you find her?” 

“She found me.” Lena explained, somewhat begrudgingly, picking her way over a fallen log without the assistance of her brother’s hastily offered hand. “I fell into a river and went over the waterfall. Kara pulled me out.”

“And there are no others like her? Where is her family?”

Lena shrugged. “She showed me a tribe of gorillas. They must have raised her. I think she’s the only other human on the island.”

“Remarkable.” Lex was speaking mostly to himself now, eyes never leaving Kara’s swinging shoulders. “But how certain are you that she is a human at all?”

Lena wanted to retort to that, but found her tongue had turned to ice water in her mouth, trickling down her spine. “She must be.” 

But that argument was thin and weak, and Lex knew it. He turned half to her, smiling briefly. “Must she be? Sister, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of many humans who can repel rifle fire at point blank range  _ and _ twist said rifle into a pretzel directly afterwards.”

“But what else could she be?” Lena fired back, immediately defensive over Kara. 

“That’s a very good question.” Lex said, with a slow, contemplative smile, and Lena let her mouth shut with a snap. 

_ Foolish _ . It was foolish to let him consider. The truth of it was that Lena had wondered herself, all those nights in the alpha’s solid embrace.  _ Where _ did she come from? And why, of any place, would she be  _ here _ ?

But Kara’s mystery had appealed to her as much as the myriad life of the jungle, and she had been content to let it unfold before her—made lazy and almost supine by her days in the blooming undergrowth. She had allowed herself to be complacent with the idea of time to get to know Kara, time unimpeded by Lex or Morgan or a crew of rowdy camp porters. She didn’t quite want to relinquish that time, either, even with her admittedly-new and sudden fear of the alpha’s strange, miraculous strength. 

Biting her lip, Lena hunched deeper into the jacket around her shoulders and watched Kara move through the canopy with a confused, protective heart. 

At camp, the blonde alpha caused quite a stir when she arrived before the rest of the party on foot. Lena heard the yells long before she could see Kara, but she ran to catch up anyway. When she arrived, Kara was looking bemusedly down at the end of a long fish gaff pole, and the other end was held by a posse of ferocious-looking Irishmen who had no clear intentions of dropping it. 

“And just where in the hell do you think you’re—oh! Miss Lena!” The demeanor of the camp immediately changed as Lena came into view, and the gaff pole dropped, several shoulders straightening. 

“At ease, gentlemen.” Lena stepped closer to Kara, half behind her in fact, feeling almost naked for the first time in days. She tightened Morgan’s hunting jacket around her chest. “This alpha is my  _ rescuer _ . My brother will be along shortly with Mr. Edge. Would you be so kind as to direct me to my tent?”

Kara accompanied her, staying close as ever, and her eyes were wide as they moved through the camp, taking in the barrels and boxes and the  _ Merry Ida _ moored in the bay just beyond. 

“Is that Lena home?” She asked, tentatively pointing at the ship.

“The ship?” Lena almost laughed, but gathered herself at the seriousness of Kara’s face. “No, it’s just a….a way to travel across the water. Like vines.”

Kara studied the ship for a moment longer, chin jutting out in sharp focus. “ _ Big _ vines” 

“Yes.  _ Many _ , too.” Lena did laugh, then, and allowed herself to slip a hand into the crook of Kara’s elbow, tugging her to the tent. “Come along, I’ll show you how it works later.” 

Once inside the tent, though, surrounded by her trappings of home and her maps and her silly pith helmet, Lena felt suddenly shy. A bit frivolous, even ridiculous. She wondered what Kara would even think of her, an omega from an entirely different world. Perhaps it would not be the same. 

But Kara seemed, if anything, enraptured. She put her hand tentatively on the map on the canvas wall, as if afraid her palm would go through it. A sigh escaped her and she traced a path with one finger over the outline of a mountain. 

“That’s a map of this island. My father made it.” Lena explained, and then expanded at Kara’s raised eyebrow. “It’s...how we find our way around.” 

“Map.” Kara sounded the word out, absently, still looking. “This mountain is old place. Not gorilla place.” 

“You’ve been there?” Lena could feel her gullet rising in both excitement and a deep twinge of fear. The mountain was where the crater was supposed to be, and if her brother knew or even suspected that Kara was in any way connected to that crater, then he’d—-

“Mmm.” Kara made a non-committal noise and moved around to finger the lace of one of Lena’s petticoats, sticking out from her wardrobe. “Pretty.”

Lena flushed. She watched Kara’s thumb slide back and forth over the slick fabric, and felt it low in her body, as if the alpha’s hand was touching her instead. She cleared her throat and aimed to look stern. “Don’t touch those, they’re private.”

“Private.” Kara echoed, and turned. The size of her in the small tent was suddenly very large and very  _ close _ .

Lena swallowed. She knew beads of sweat were appearing on her brow. “I—it means not for other people. Just...yourself and maybe...maybe one other person.”

Kara’s grunt of understanding puffed out the hair against the side of her head—that was how close they had suddenly become in the still heat of the tent. Her heavy, calloused hand slid under the loose sleeves of Morgan’s jacket, and pushed them to the floor, leaving Lena’s shoulders exposed and bare. The omega barely repressed a shiver, unable to stop looking up into Kara’s bright blue gaze, sharp as ever. Her hand stayed on Lena’s bare shoulder, cupping the vulnerable ball joint there, stroking with her thumb down Lena’s exposed collarbone. 

“Private.” Kara repeated, low and heavy with intent, and Lena closed her eyes, tilting her chin up slightly. 

“Lena? Are you dressing in there?”

Lex’s booming call had Lena’s eyes slamming open, moment ruined in a swift, efficient shatter. She disentangled herself from Kara as quickly as she could, hurrying to button close the tent flap before he could approach further. “Yes!” She half-squeaked, and cleared her throat. “Just...getting into decent clothing now.”

“Ah, yes. I’d imagine you’d want that.” Lex sounded not the least bit fooled. “Is Kara with you?”

Lena closed her eyes in defeat for a split second.  _ Damn him.  _ “Yes.”

“Good. Come along to my tent when you find something suitable, will you? I’ve a few questions to ask your savior.”

_ Of course you do.  _ Lena tightened her spine. “Yes, we’ll be there shortly.”

The sound of his retreating footfalls made her heart relax. She didn’t know what she was going to do about Lex’s troubling interest in Kara, nor why it bothered her so, but she knew it was already easier when he wasn’t around. That was possibly a very bad sign. 

Putting that uneasiness from her thoughts as best as she could, Lena began the process of pulling a fresh chemise and dress from her hampers. Kara watched her with interest, eyes widening as Lena pawed absently through piles of silky fabric. When she had selected a suitably modest option, Lena gave Kara spinning motion with her finger. “Turn around please. It’s rude to stare while someone puts clothing on.”

“Private?” Kara asked, over her shoulder as she obligingly faced the wall. 

Lena flushed as she pulled her ruined chemise over her head, feeling thrillingly naked just inches from Kara’s warm hands. “Yes. This is private, too.”

“Just for one person?” Kara probed, gently. Even with her back turned Lena could see how she was parsing this out. 

“For one person. And maybe one other. Like you.” Lena’s nipples tightened in the air, and she hurried to change into undergarments, feeling as hot across the chest as if Kara was watching her. 

“Mmm.” The noise Kara made was contemplative. “Thank you.”

‘Thank you’ had been a recent addition to her repertoire of language, but an entirely welcome one. Especially now. Lena hastened to put her dress on, suddenly struck with the urge to kiss Kara’s rough cheek. “Yes, well. You’re...welcome.”

The clean fabric of fresh clothing felt oddly foreign as she fluffed her hair out, settling the dress over her hips with care. She’d picked a cornflower blue one, almost by accident, and only now had it occurred to her that it was very like the color of Kara’s eyes. Heat swelled in her lower belly and she cleared her throat. “Thank you for turning. You can look now. It’s not….private anymore.”

But when Kara turned, the way the air felt suddenly still and close again with the heat of her eyes on Lena’s body was definitely more  _ private  _ than acceptably public. She only barely managed to sidestep the alpha’s hungry eyes for the tent flap, but it was a near thing. The tension between them remained, shimmering like rising hot air. 

It was sufficiently doused by the chill in Lex’s tent when they arrived. Morgan was sulking in the corner, his arms folded in Lex’s camp chair, feet up on the table. An untouched glass of whiskey was at his elbow—Lex had clearly been attempting some conciliatory alcohol for Morgan’s wounded pride, but judging by the level of the glass, it didn’t seem to have been working very well. Her erstwhile-suitor gave Lena a morose and angry look as they entered, his accusatory eyes landing squarely on Kara. 

Lex bustled past them immediately, with hardly a second glance at the frosty tension in the room. “Be right back!” He called gaily, and disappeared before Lena could protest. 

Which left them alone with Morgan Edge’s bruised ego. 

Luckily, Kara was blithely unaware of the alpha trying to subtly challenge her across the room. She was too busy putting Lex’s own pith helmet on her head to try it on. “Heavy!” She exclaimed, delighted. 

Lena hid her titter of charm behind her palm. “Yes, it’s a helmet. Protects your head.”

“Not that she has much need of that, with being bulletproof.” Morgan commented, tinged with jealousy. 

“She’s not bulletproof.” Lena felt her heart clench, even as she once again looked searchingly at the soiled red wrapping wound across Kara’s chest and down her loins. “Perhaps your gun misfired.”

Morgan guffawed, angrily. He glared at her over the edge of his glass, finally lifting it to his lips in a desultory salute. “Omega folly. My gun fired true. That  _ beast _ just absorbed the hit.” 

Kara seemed to realize she’d been insulted as she set the helmet down. Her lip curled and a low growl echoed across the tent as large bronzed shoulders squared at Morgan’s general direction. He withered almost instantly, clutching his glass, and Lena felt a fine stab of both arousal and satisfaction. 

But whatever rebuttal she was going to manage was dashed when Lex returned to the tent, brandishing an all-too-familiar roll of parchment in his hands. “Here it is! Let us compare notes.”

Lena’s heart suddenly thumped in a heavy, uncomfortable way. “Is that Father’s map? You took that from my tent!”

Lex hardly even glanced at her, waving a hand as if to shush her quiet as he spread the map out over his folding table. “It belongs to both of us. Now, Kara, if you would be so good as to show me—“

“You had no right to do that!” Lena’s voice suddenly went louder and more shrill than she intended. All pairs of eyes turned to her. “Father’s map was left to me.”

“Lena.” She hated how Lex was looking at her. As if she was an unruly child again, messing up her pinafore. “Don’t be upset. I shall return it momentarily. The sooner we can settle this matter, the better, don’t you agree? After all, this is why we came all this way.”

Kara was looking between Lena and Lex as if figuring out how best to be helpful in this tense moment. “Kara will help. Show map.”

“See? She wants to help.” Lex looked far too triumphant for Lena’s tastes. He beckoned Kara over to the table. “Look here, Kara. We’re looking for a crater. A...big hole, see? It would be on a mountainside, or a hill. Somewhere not easily visible—“

“This mountain.” Kara interrupted firmly, and Lena’s heart sank 10,000 leagues below the sea as the alpha’s blunted finger traced again over the mountain at the center of the island, just as she had before. “Crater here. Kara come from.”

There was an audible sucking of breath in the room. Kara, naive to their excitement, turned to face Lex’s bright, oddly eager face, and Morgan, who had leaned forward with serious interest now that the crater was being mentioned.  _ No.  _ Lena thought, hands clutching at the rim of the table, desperate to cut Kara off before she did something foolish like offer—

“I show you.”

***

**Author's Note:**

> Bored of quarantine and needing a treasure trove of smut? Follow the link in my [ Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aspidities) for updates and prompts and gay bullshittery the likes of which you’ve never seen


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